There are a number of reasons to binge NatGeo’s “Barkskins,” an adaption of Annie Proulx’s celebrated novel, this summer. Most importantly, it covers an important period in North American history rarely acknowledged or known outside of Canada and accurately depicts the power of the Indigenous nations in New France at the time during the 17th Century. It also features some wonderfully impressive performances from Marcia Gay Harden, David Wilmot and, of course, David Thewlis.
READ MORE: Marcia Gay Harden ponders a second season of “Barkskins” [Interview]
After three decades as a working actor, Thewlis has joined that list of names who are the precipice of landing a role that propels them to their first Oscar nomination. The 57-year-old Brit has earned an Emmy nod before (for 2017’s “Fargo”) and has a shot at duplicating that feat this year with “Barkskins” thanks to his wonderfully charismatic performance as Claude Trepagny, a morally disingenuous man of mysterious wealth in New France. As he has with many good and bad movies over the years, Thewlis steals almost every scene he’s in, but you knew that already didn’t you?
Thewlis jumped on the phone last month to talk about why he jumped into the Elwood Reid and Scott Rudin produced series, his role in the “Avatar” sequels and, surprise, his next literary effort.
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The Playlist: What intrigued you about “Barkskins” when it came your way?
David Thewlis: I think really, it being a story that I’ve never seen told before, a period of history, a period of politics, that I’ve never known anything about. We see so many period historical movies in our time, and it was very refreshing to go, “Oh, I haven’t seen this one.” I didn’t know anything about this time. The closest I’d come, I did a film, “The New World” with Terrence Malick, which is set in the first part of the 17th century, essentially the Pocahontas story. So, I had some knowledge of this period a little in terms of North American history, but I had no idea what was going on 50 years later, further North. Didn’t really know much about New France at all. I knew about the Quebecois people of Canada, but I never really studied to bring myself to understand how they came to be there and how they had to fight for their place there. I think it was just being drawn into that as an educational experience, as much as anything else. And then, of course, the character I played, Trepagny, was just something that appealed to me because it’s just a great opportunity to take on board something that could be potentially very entertaining to myself, and hopefully to an audience.
Well, the interesting thing about Trepagny, besides his charismatic demeanor, is he’s a man whose wealth comes from very mysterious circumstances. Did you find out more about his backstory either from Elwood or did Proulx’s novel give you more details about him?
I never spoke to Annie Proulx, I never met her. The Trepagny in the novel is rather different from the Trepagny that Elwood created for the series. In fact, when I first met Elwood, I was a little reluctant to get involved because I had only read the book at that point, and I looked at it and thought, “Well, I’m not sure why they want me to play this Trepagny. He’s a big, muscular, powerful guy who’s wrestling trees to the ground barehanded himself.” And I was like, “I’m not that guy. I’m frail, thin, and weak. I can’t chop down a tree.” On top of that, I got a bad shoulder shooting “Avatar,” so I literally can’t even pretend to chop down a tree. Then Elwood was like, “No, no, no, I see him a little more like Nick Cave,” was the reference he gave me. And then we got into all the stuff about the Cathars, which is not in the book, but I would say he’d spoken to Annie Proulx, and that she had like a hundred pages she’d cut from the book, talking about this Trepagny as having ancestry with the Cathar religion. That was, to him, a real key to creating him on the page, and then he shared that with me and we decided to pursue that and even if it comes over in the series as little enigmatic, because it’s never really quite explained. We know he’s described as a heretic and the Cathar cross is mentioned at some point, but it’s not upfront and center with his character. And the character was such an enigma and is such a contradiction. There was some stuff, a little more explanation of all that, that was cut from the show in the end because I think it was just some backstory that was there for us and we shot stuff, but there wasn’t room for it in the story because it wasn’t really necessary to the plot. So there may be some little holes there. Now it puzzles me as to this man who is boasting about his great wealth in this wonderful domain he’s built in the woods and then he takes two indentured servants to the middle of the woods and we see he’s living in a shitty little log cabin. That, for me, was that he’s obviously completely, utterly, delusional. And that’s the key for the character, is that he lives in a dream world. And then in the script, as in the book, there’s also this grand Manor house, but we were shooting in such a way that, that Manor house was not built in time, or we could only shoot it the final few weeks at that Manor house. So I thought when we do get to that, it’s going to be something also delusional and it’s not going to be sort of grand and it’s going to be something that’s put together in a few months by a jumble of other workers. It’s not going to be finished. And then I saw the finished thing [which was not the case]. So I was constantly changing my backstory as we went along because I was surprised as the audience were, thinking he’s a man of great wealth and great sophistication, and possibly noble heritage. It’s funny when you working on such an enigmatic character and you’re only getting the episodes as they come in, you don’t get the whole show. I’m of the same belief really. His backstory for me kept changing.
After watching the first episode, I could not have seen Trepagny having sympathy about what happens to some of the people around him. But as the series goes on, that sort of pops out here and there. Was that in the scripts or was it your choice in showing this aspect of the character?
That’s a good question. I think maybe the second. Elwood never wanted to write all of them without first getting the show up and running and seeing the actors playing the parts and seeing how everything was working, then still writing himself. I know he had the story planned out, but he didn’t have everything planned out and he didn’t have the entire character arcs planned out. And I think what happened with Trepagny was he starts off as rather flamboyant and boarish, a little bit of a showman, and that was interesting and entertaining in the first episode. We think, if we keep him at this pitch, he’s a little one dimensional, two dimensional. I wasn’t really interested in just playing someone who was just a bit of a loudmouth and it can be dangerous spilling over in the mood of the rest of the characters in the season. I think also, we had different directors who started to sort of see the possibilities as well. I know we had Courtney Hunt on episode four, [and she saw] a much more traditional, much more realistic independence for them and was really very interested in turning down a lot of performances, to be more based in realism which I really appreciate. That was a very good move and it was very interesting for my character at that point to really settle down a few notches and become something much more believable to myself. And then I think that organically informed where Elwood’s writing went in pursuing the story with Melissande and Mari, and how I became a much more sympathetic character. Although, absolutely obnoxious, very badly behaved character. Someone who I think is a little more human, a little more believable to me, as opposed to the character we first introduced. This is how I’m learning this. I’ve not done much series TV, apart from “Fargo.” I miss how TV works, that you get something where you don’t have the whole story, and you have to adapt as it comes your way.
I won’t spoil anything for those who haven’t seen the entire series yet, but did you know where Trepagny would end up at the end of the season before you took the role?
I was unclear where [the series] would end up because it’s nothing like the book. In the book, they’ll say Trepagny then went away for two years, and then he came back. There are big leaps of time in the book with no explanation of where he’d been, but he went away for two years and then came back with a bigger beard, or something. He speaks two more languages now. Annie Proulx doesn’t explain those things. I didn’t really concentrate on the book a lot, I didn’t really identify with it. And indeed, Trepagny in the book dies a kind of wonderful death. If I do come to die in the series, I’d really like them to keep the death from the book because it’s really quite grotesque. I believed I was headed for that. But I didn’t really know. I had an idea that he was going to end up about to get married and building his tower because Elwood did give me some information. But until you have the script in your hand, you’re never quite sure.
Well, where he ends up is a beautiful image in the series. It was slightly profound, I thought, in the context of what was going on. Before I let you go, I wanted to just really ask, I know you’re supposed to be shooting the new “Avatar” films, are you on your way to New Zealand? Are you there already?
No, not at all. I should make this clear because there was some mistake in the press. I’m not in “Avatar 2.” I’m in “Avatar 3” which was shot at the same time as “Avatar 2.” And “Avatar 4” and “Avatar 5” will be shot after that. And I believe I will be in “Avatar 4” and “5.” Also, I’m a Navi. I think what they’re shooting in New Zealand is, I don’t know, they’re likely to be live-action sequences. The motion capture stuff is shot in Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles, California. I’m on the stage there, we have very particular conditions, and in fact, not really shot at all as we understand shooting. I’m sure you’re familiar with how that stuff [works].
When the isolation orders hit, were you in the middle of shooting anything? Were you about to head anywhere to do so?
No. I was very fortunate because actually, what I was thinking to do, was to take this summer off. I bought a new house about two years ago and I’ve not really seen much of it and I’ve got a beautiful garden, and I’ve not really seen it develop winter to spring to summer. And I thought it’d be very beautiful if we could just not doing anything for a while. After finishing “Barkskins” I wrote a novel and I just finished editing [it] in March just as the lockdown in Britain came. So, I knew I wanted that time to finish the book, and then I wasn’t in a rush to do anything else. I was, in fact, supposed to be shooting something in June, which has now been pushed back to September in England, if possible. Although I hear today, probably may get pushed now to January, but we don’t know yet. It’s all dependent on how film crews going back to work, and that’s happening in France right now, it’s happening obviously in New Zealand. I think some soap operas are going to start shooting in Britain quite soon. The canary in the cage, everyone’s kind of like, “O.K., you begin, and let’s see how it goes.” But here in England, in Britain, right now, we’re at a very delicate stage with just starting to relax some rules and it’s all very confusing. I think we’ve really got to look at the next couple of months before we know when we can go back to work properly. As it happens, I’m fine with that because I want to watch my garden grow anyway.
I don’t know if you’ve announced your novel. Can you just describe what it is about or what genre it is?
I don’t want to give it out because I’m not sure this title’s going to remain as it was in the draft form. I wrote a novel before, years ago, in 2007, called “The Late Hector Kipling,” which was set in the modern art world, because I didn’t want to write something that was set in the world of acting and film. But this novel is set in the world of acting and film. It’s written about a British very well known [fictional] film director and an actress in her thirties and a man who well…it’s a very, very dark comedy. Very dark.
“Barkskins” is available on NatGeo’s streaming app.
